MERI Mirror, April' 2020

Ms. Saloni Saini
Assistant Professor &
Faculty Co-ordinator
MERI Mirror
DEMYSTIFYING FAKE NEWS
DURING PANDEMIC
Under the unprecedented times of pandemic, wherein one strata of the society is struggling
for livelihood and the other is safely cocooned in their houses, both sceptical about their
respective futures, proliferation of misinformation has posed a considerable challenge. This
is inevitable due to our sudden overdependence on the digital mode of information
consumption. From news to classrooms, from meetings to Houseparty, from Ramayan to
Netflix, the virtual media fanaticism has certainly taken over the real-world flow of
information, during the lockdown.
Of late, certain terms like fake news, misinformation, disinformation, information disorder,
misleading information, etc. are being super imposed in its day-to-day usage, ever since we
have started relying on WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter and other social applications for
seeking news and information. The common ground of these terms and our ill-knowledge of
its usage relies on the fact that they do not have the same meaning. Misinformation refers to
false information, being spread without any such intention from the disseminator. S/he is
under the assumption of it being credible and accurate. Disinformation is the spread of false
information, with an intention from the disseminator. S/he does so in full awareness. Malinformation
is based on reality, but used with an intention of harming a
person/community/organisation, etc. These three are what we call as fake news in layman
term, which is an aspect of information disorder.
As responsible and literate citizens of the country, it thus becomes our duty to check and
recheck facts and information before spreading them out of negligence and bigotry. The
silver lining here lies in the piece of information itself. One should observe it minutely in
terms of content, language, format, source, mode, etc. If an element of doubt tags along, the
next step should be its verification. It can be through an authorized person or an organisation.
Excising fingers over Google also does no harm, be it searching a selected section of the
content body or adopting reverse image search. Thus, all it takes is a bit of alertness, efforts
and time to demystify fake news and curb its repercussions.